Workshop 41 mini-test

1. Why can a bass riff establish harmony without block chords?

2. What is the characteristic difference between B♭ Dorian and B♭ Aeolian?

3. What role can E natural play in a B♭-minor/blues riff?

4. Why should RH often avoid duplicating notes already prominent in the bass riff?

5. What is rhythmic counterpoint in this context?

6. What happens when the minor 3rd D♭ is omitted from a B♭-minor-centered sonority?

7. Why does F7 become especially powerful after many bars of static B♭ modal harmony?

8. What is density compensation?

9. What are the four complexity budgets described near the end?

10. What is the deepest lesson of Workshop 41?

Answers

1. Because repeated root, chord tones, characteristic tensions, and chromatic gestures can imply the tonal center and quality horizontally.
2. B♭ Dorian has G natural (6); B♭ Aeolian has G♭ (♭6).
3. It can act as a chromatic approach E♭→E→F and also as the blues ♭5.
4. Because the bass has already supplied that harmonic information; duplication wastes register and can make the texture muddy.
5. LH and RH maintain distinct interlocking rhythmic patterns rather than constantly attacking together.
6. The explicit minor identity weakens, creating a more suspended/ambiguous sonority until D♭ returns.
7. Because long static harmony suppresses functional direction; introducing F7 suddenly creates clear V→i gravity toward B♭ minor.
8. When one layer becomes rhythmically or melodically dense, another layer is deliberately simplified so the total texture remains clear.
9. Harmony, rhythm, texture, and register.
10. A strong arrangement is not built by continually adding information; it is built by deciding which musical layer should carry the information at each moment.

The central lesson of Workshop 41 is:

If the bass already tells the story, the most musical thing the rest of the piano can do may be to leave enough room for us to hear it.